COPAA, the Business Roundtable, The US Chamber of Commerce, The Leadership Conference, The Education Trust, Democrats for Education Reform, The National Center for Learning Disabilities, and The National Council of La Raza send letter urging accountability to address underachievement

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (affects CA, CT, DE, HI, ID, IA, ME,MI, MO, MT,NV, NH, NC, ND,OR, SD, U.S VI, VT, WA, WV, WI, WY ) - COPAA, with the the National Federation of the Blind (“NFB”) and other advocate signators, sent a letter on January 23rd with great urgency regarding the upcoming rollout of SBA's operational assessments and their detrimental impact on students who are blind or have learning or other disabilities. We expressed deep concern that many students with disabilities will be denied the right to participate equally in these assessments. Despite our ongoing outreach to Smarter Balanced and its contractor, American Institutes for Research (“AIR”), we fear that many students with disabilities will be harmed by the significant accessibility barriers that still remain so close to the tests’ launch and that components of your policy decisions will mean that certain students will be completely excluded from taking portions of the assessment.

COPAA is gravely concerned about Chairman Alexander’s ESEA discussion draft due to its complete dismantling of accountability for the outcomes and improvement of all students, including students with disabilities. The bill lacks any mechanism for ensuring that students not making gains will be given any targeted intervention and support when they are failing to meet state standards. Furthermore, for the 6.4 million students with disabilities, including those living in poverty, the draft would place their access to a high school diploma at great risk by allowing schools to place students and count their scores as proficient – unchecked - into the alternate assessment on alternate achievement standards. Such decisions often lead to a reduction in or removal of access to the general curriculum in the regular classroom and take students off-track for a regular diploma as early as third grade.

COPAA offers our support for Support Making Assessments Reliable and Timely Act or the ‘SMART Act.’ We thank you for your leadership on this important legislation that will promote investment in reliable, high-quality assessments aligned to state content standards for all students.

COPAA is writing to provide comments to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) as you begin the process of implementing the amendments to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that were made by Title IV of the Workforce Investment Opportunity Act (WIOA). Our comments intend to support the young adults with disabilities whom we know struggle to receive appropriate transition services under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and whose quality of life and employment may be directly impacted by WIOA as they transition out of high school into adulthood.

Docket No. ED–2014–OSERS–0058: CEIS and Significant Disproportionality. Response to the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED), Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) Request for Information (RFI) on addressing significant disproportionality under Section 618(d) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Specifically, COPAA wishes to address OSERS question regarding “how best to address significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity in the identification of children for special education, including identification by disability category, educational placements, and disciplinary actions?”

in response to the U.S. Department of Education granting an extension of the New York waiver under the Elementary and Secondary Act, Denise Marshall, COPAA executive director made the following statement:

“We are pleased that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and New York State Education Department (NYSED) have negotiated a waiver extension that continues to fully include students with disabilities in state reading and math assessments as required by ESEA. This agreement is good news for approximately 386,000 students with disabilities attending public school in New York. It is a victory for the potential of every child. We thank both federal and state officials for ensuring that federal law is upheld; maintaining full accountability; and, assuring equal opportunity to achieve meaningful academic success for these students.”